The variety of malware on the Internet is ever-growing. One such variant of malware is ransomware, which attempts to encrypt important files on a user's computing system and then hold the encrypted files for ransom. If the user does not pay the ransom, the important files remain encrypted and may be impossible for the user to access. Unfortunately, the encryption of important files may result in data loss and/or may compromise functionality on the computing system. In addition, paying the ransom can also introduce other problems since the malicious developers now have access to the user's payment information.
Traditional security systems are often designed to prevent malware from being inadvertently installed by a user, but may have no means of detecting or removing malware once it has been installed. Moreover, even if a conventional security systems is able to remove installed ransomware, it may be too late since the user's files have already been encrypted. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for protecting files from malicious encryption attempts.